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A Rapid Development Framework for Microsoft Access
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Making sure your validation bases are covered
It's easy to get burned when trying to set up custom validations for Access fields and enforcing them while the form is being filled out. I have a form with the following fields (of the type): Vendor Name (string) Is Vendor Active (checkbox) Is On PO form (checkbox)...
VBA conversions – implicit and explicit
Sometimes you can get runtime errors when you are trying to assign the value of a control to some VBA object. For example, consider this statement: TempVars!NewTempVar = Form_orders.order_id What we are trying to do is set the NewTempVar in the TempVars system...
Good candidates for Access projects
Maybe you read my last message (Hammers and nails, Access and…? | Access JumpStart) and thought, "Yeah, Access does sound like a good fit for my business needs." But what would you use it for exactly? If you've never used Access or any relational database software,...
Hammers and nails, Access and…?
It's important to choose the right tool for the right job. What about Microsoft Access? When is it the best or at least a good tool for the job? Or turning around the question, what are the best jobs to use Access for? The first thing to remember is that Access is a...
Use the DoEvents command wisely
If you are using DoEvents in your VBA code to allow form updates or preventing Windows from labeling your Access app as Unresponsive, make sure you consider the potential ramifications. DoEvents not only chimes in to the OS that it's awake, but it also allows any...
User experience and checkbox labels
I had a customer who was confused as to why a checkbox was being checked or unchecked at seemingly random times. In this particular case, the checkbox label was very wide and butted right up to the button to save the data on the form and close it. In Access, when you...
Calculating Weeks and Periods in VBA
I recently needed to calculate the period number of a current date for a client. The current period is not exactly the current week number, it's a specific week, but it could start on any particular day and end on any particular day. In my case, they specify it for a...
Deftype statements in VBA – What?
I had never heard of this keyword. I was perusing the Microsoft Learn web site and happened across this in the VBA reference here: Deftype statements (VBA) | Microsoft Learn Here is the basic definition from that page: Used at the module level to set the default data...
DLookup and “NiceDLookup”
A lot of Access users (especially newer ones) like to use the function DLookup to quickly lookup a value from a table or query. It is quite handy shorthand and can be used in VBA and in queries. The usage of DLookup is: DLookup (Expr, Domain, Criteria)...
Finding the width of arbitrary text in Access VBA
I'm revisiting my ListBox control work from these two articles: Access ListBox Row Source and Type | Access JumpStart ListBox Column size adjustments | Access JumpStart The second article discsusses how to adjust column sizes using the ColumnWidths property and the...
ListBox Column size adjustments
In a previous article, I discussed a listbox conundrum I had with really long lists: Access ListBox Row Source and Type | Access JumpStart One of the things I wanted to do with this listbox was adjust the column sizes of the list on the fly, depending on the size of...
Access Query to Excel Data table, quick!
Sometimes my customers ask me for data from their database that they want to see in a way they've never looked at or needed to look at it before. When this happens to me and the answer is a data pull, I will often either pull up an existing query with the answer or...
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